radio115

KYA Radio’s First Studio
Circa 1926

KYA went on the air on December 18, 1926, from this studio on the fifth floor of the Clift Hotel. It was operated by the Pacific Broadcasting Company, owned by Vincent Kraft, the operator KJR in Seattle. Over the next three years he constructed several other stations on the West Coast, and even opened a nascent network, the American Broadcasting Company. However, it all collapsed suddenly in 1929 when one of his investors, a Seattle banker, was jailed for embezzling bank funds to keep the stations afloat.